Appeal No. 1997-3332
Application No. 08/436,182
not contest this finding. Accordingly, we affirm the
rejection. For the record, we note that appellants have
offered in their Brief to amend claim 11 in order to obviate
the 35 USC § 112 rejection, and the examiner's Answer
indicates that such an amendment would be accepted to obviate
the rejection if the amendment were presented separately.
With regard to the prior art rejection, we affirm on the
grounds of anticipation and, in the alternative, on the
grounds of obviousness. As explained by the examiner, there
is little question that Mazzola discloses a powder laundry
detergent blend which encompasses the claimed composition with
respect to both compositional components and component
concentrations. In this regard, we refer to the broad
teachings of Mazzola (col. 1,
l. 60 - col. 2, l. 36) as well as Mazzola's working examples.
Of course, anticipation is the epitome of obviousness.
Also, as noted by the examiner, the present claims
include the open-ended term "comprising" and, thereby, do not
preclude addition of other components such as the fatty acid
salt coating of Mazzola.
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007